While growing up in Saudi Arabia, I would watch our cook as he prepared complex, gourmet meals. It was not only a distraction in a place without neighborhood parks or television, but also a cultural adventure into his native Filipino culture, as well as romps to Italy, France and home to the U.S. I’d watch, fascinated, as he would remove the meat and bones from a whole chicken’s skin, mixing the meat with vegetables and seasoning, and then somehow get it all back into the skin before stitching the floppy bird back together and roasting it.
I have never understood how a person could not know how to cook. Friends ask me to teach them a recipe or two, so before dinner parties, I call them into the kitchen. They are inevitably more concerned about what we are drinking, and are often back in the living room within five minutes. They do not know what it means to make onions sweat (cook them over low heat) or julienne carrots (cut them into matchsticks). As I walked them through the recipes, I watched their drunken stares and realized they watched me the way a person watched “Iron Chef” (the Japanese version) on the Food Network; I was entertaining, funny even. But they had no intent of ever whipping up those braised short ribs in a rosemary-merlot reduction with a mixed bean succotash and wilted spinach. They didn’t even know what the hell succotash (a seasoned hash of corn, beans, and vegetables) was.
These cooking lessons were the equivalent of teaching them to ski by pushing them straight down a black diamond. You need to start on the bunny hills.
I love the frozen food section at Trader Joes, so I invited a friend to make a meal with me—one that was already slightly made. Nothing beats the Shrimp and Vegetable Gyoza Potstickers. The little dumplings are perfect sautéed in a little sesame oil, which gives the illusion of cooking. They were perfect and boosted my friend’s cooking confidence.
When learning to cook, it’s better to start simple in order to get a feel for the way oil heats and butter melts or how quickly spinach wilts in the pan. You’ll soon learn that if you follow a recipe to the T, the results might not look like the picture on the box, but they will rarely taste bad.
It’s great to start with casseroles because preparations are easy, usually just chopping, mixing them all together and baking. Having the right basic tools on hand is important. Try to have a sharp knife, cutting board, cheese grater and a few basic pans, nothing a visit from Mom or a trip to Target can’t fix.
Return to dishes you know without a long list of ingredients; it can be fun to try stuff on the back of boxes. Try the coconut rice on the back of L’s Jasmine rice. It’s simple, sweet and savory, and as good as anything you could find at Bangkok Bistro.
Before you know it, you might even be teaching your friends what blanching is (boiling something and then submerging it in an ice bath) or stuffing a chicken skin. You’ll certainly have a few good meals along the way.
